


Five things you can see

by EmmaArthur



Series: Whumptober 2019 [18]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex has panic attacks, Canon Disabled Character, Choking, Handprint, M/M, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Whumptober, alien stuff, established malex, shared feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaArthur/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: Alex has a panic attack. Michael suddenly feels like he's choking.





	Five things you can see

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober day 19: **Asphyxiation**.
> 
> I'm so very late, so I'm skipping prompt 18 for now, though it's about half written.
> 
> This is chronologically the first part of All Of You, happening just a couple of months after the end of season 1.
> 
> [panic attack, PTSD, abuse, mentions of war]
> 
> **Edit:** I was sick and really tired last night when I posted this, and I somehow forgot to say that InsidiousIntent is the one who came up with the great plot of this story. I'm so sorry.

“Hey, I'm heading out,” Kyle says, passing behind Alex's chair.

Alex checks the time on his computer to see that it's already lunch time.

“Got a date?” he asks.

“No, just a healthy work routine,” Kyle shoots back. “You should get out more.”

“I'm eating out tonight,” Alex shrugs. “So I just brought a sandwich for lunch.”

“Eating out, uh? That's what got you mooning at your screen all morning?”

Alex turns in his chair to look at Kyle, who is opening the bunker door. “I'm not mooning!” he exclaims.

“Right,” Kyle rolls his eyes. “See you later.”

Alex glares at his back and goes back to his monitor. Seeing the shimmering out of the corner of his eyes, he pulls back his sleeve to admire the handprint on his palm. The colors and shining still mesmerize him every time he sees a handprint or the console, and today it's tinted with a rush of pride−and a foreign feeling of _love love love_ mixing perfectly with his own. Michael did that.

He's been struggling with his powers for weeks. After Isobel shared that she manage to make a picture frame explode, and that Noah said they all had more powers than they thought, Liz became convinced that the only way to bring Max back was for Isobel and Michael to figure out how to heal him. Since then, they've been working at it most days, and it's been a trying time.

Alex has tried to support Michael through his grief the best he can, ever since he came back to his trailer late the evening Max died, after Alex waited for him all day, and collapsed in Alex's arms. He told Alex everything, talking through the night, about Noah, about Max, and finally about Maria. How he'd tried to find solace in paying guitar and Maria's lips and found out that all he wanted was Alex's arms.

Alex welcomed him into his arms gladly.

Isobel is now good at tossing objects around the room, and Michael is a convincing telepath. But neither of them had made any kind of progress on healing wounds. Liz, always self-sacrificing, has given herself countless paper cuts−all in the controlled environment of her lab, of course−and even convinced Alex and Kyle to help, but nothing has seemed to work.

Until last night, when Alex cut his hand deeply while trying to cook for a date dinner. The date almost ended in the ER, which Alex should have known because he's a terrible cook, but Michael sat in front of him as Alex was trying to control the bleeding with a bunch of tissues, cursing, and grabbed Alex's hand.

It took almost half an hour before the wound was completely gone, and Michael spent another hour throwing up and chugging acetone, but it  _worked._ And it gave Alex an interesting new perspective on Michael's feelings for him, as their emotions started to mingle. 

That's why he's spent the whole morning smiling to himself like a newlywed, but he's not going to tell Kyle that.

Pulling his sandwich out of his bag, he absently presses play on the next of the Caulfield surveillance video. He and Kyle have been going through them for months, now, and by now they're mostly doing it to give themselves good conscience, because it's highly unlikely they're going to find something new. The videos Alex is currently speeding through are  nearly twenty years old.

Except the image on the screen makes him stop in his tracks. It's his father. Alex has seen him pop up in the surveillance images often, but he's almost never taking part in the experiments. But this time he is.

He's towering over a woman strapped to a table, whom Alex recognizes immediately as Michael's mother. Fuck. His father and Michael's mom in the same room doesn't sound good. There's no sound, which is part of the reason why the surveillance videos have been less than useful, and the image is grainy.

Alex watches, transfixed, as Jesse Manes talks. He has the same expression on his face as the one he gets every time he tells Alex how much he's disappointed in his son. Alex can't tell what he's saying, but his features slowly turn angrier at Mara's lack of reaction. She looks strangely immobile, peaceful, like her mind is not even there. She's dissociating, Alex thinks. I recognize that look.

Alex can't take his eyes off the screen. He flinches, the first time his father slaps Mara. He can hear the sound in his mind, like a clap of thunder.

This would have been...he checks the date in the corner of the screen. A couple of months after his mother left. Alex was eight. His father was angry all the time then, and Alex bore the brunt of it.

It turns out he wasn't the only one receiving the abuse. And he wasn't the only one who was completely defenseless in front of Jesse Manes.

Alex bites on his finger as Jesse slaps Mara again. He can almost feel the slap on his own cheek, but worse than that, he remembers the marks on his mother's cheek, more and more common in the last few months before she left. Jesse Manes has always liked people he can tower over, people who will cower in front of him. His wife. His youngest son. His son's seventeen-year-old already-abused boyfriend, once.

And, apparently, tied-up alien women.

Alex doesn't even realize he's having a panic attack until the world is swimming in front of him. He gasps, desperate for air that won't fill his lungs.

_Dammit_ . Alex tries to focus on breathing, but the video is still going, and his hands are shaking too much to stop it. Not that he can. He can't take his eyes off his father and Mara.

_Breathe. _ It doesn't help. 

_Five things you can see_ . Alex has done this hundreds of time. He learned this particular technique in therapy, but he used some variation of it long before he even made it to basic training. The screen. The bunker around him. His father, in the goddamn video.  _Shit_ . 

Wheezing, Alex lets himself slide down from his chair and to the floor. He huddled under the desk. At least from there he can't see the screen anymore.

The legs of the chair. Part of the table. His bag, on another chair beside the desk.

No movement. Jesse Manes isn't there. Alex gasps.

_Four things you can touch. _ Er, the floor. Probably dirty, because no one has bothered to clean since Jesse Manes ended up in the hospital. Alex closes his eyes at the thought of his father.  _Focus_ . The wall behind his back. The desk, with the top of his head. His neck is going to hurt later. His leg, too. The prosthetic, he can feel it, the sock around his stump. His clothes.

_Three things you can hear. _ There isn't much, with the bunker underground and soundproof. Ventilation. The computer's buzzing. His phone, ringing. 

Wait, his phone is ringing.

Alex ignores it, still panting. The world is coming back into focus around him, slowly, but he feels exhausted.

_Two things you can smell. _ Dust.  Plastic.

_One thing you can taste._ Ashes.

Alex swallows.

The ashes taste is what he gets for letting his traumas mix up together, because that's one from the explosion. Oh, well. He could rinse out the taste, but his water bottle is in his bag, too far away. He lets his breathing slow down instead.

His phone is still ringing. It's on the desk, where the video is playing on the screen. He can't deal with it right now.

It stops ringing, and Alex makes no move to get up. He'll need to, before Kyle makes it back here, but he has maybe another half-hour. He rests his head on his arm instead, so tired that he would lay down on the floor if there was enough space under the desk, and traces at the shining mark on his hand, trying to find comfort in it.

Alex  scrambles to stand up when he hears the door of the bunker open, almost hitting his head in the process. His neck and his leg have seized up from the awkward position he was in under the desk, as he suspected, and he lets himself drop onto his chair just before Kyle walks in.

“Alex? You're still here? Liz's been calling you,” Kyle says.

_Shit_ . “I guess my phone's on silent,” Alex answers as casually as possible. He makes a show to check it, and the screen shows three missed calls from Liz and one from Michael. 

A cursory, though apprehensive, look tells him that while the surveillance video is still playing on his computer monitor, it's now showing an empty room. He lets out a breath of relief. “What's up?” he asks.

“Apparently something weird happened to Michael during training,” Kyle says. “They called me to check him out.”

“Weird? Weird how?”

“He said it was like he was being asphyxiated for a couple of minutes, and then it was gone just as silently.”

Alex frowns. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he's fine, just a little shaken up. But we don't know what caused it.”

“I should go check on him,” Alex says, standing up. “I haven't eaten,” he adds, taking his sandwich. He hopes Kyle doesn't notice that there's several bites missing, or that Alex limps more than usual when he walks out of the bunker. Kyle doesn't need to know about his father and Mara.

Alex shudders just thinking about it, the images stuck in his mind. Trying to distract himself, he starts his car and puts the radio on, thinking about Michael. Is something wrong with him?

He makes it to Max's house, when Michael and Isobel have been training, before he's even finished his sandwich.

“Hey,” he knocks on the door, coming in without waiting for an answer. “Kyle told me something happened?”

“I've been calling you,” Liz says immediately, pulling him into the living room. Alex stumbles, but catches himself on a bookshelf. “Oh, sorry. You okay?”

“Fine,” Alex says through gritted teeth, riding the sudden added pain. “Michael?”

“I'm okay,” Michael walks up to him from the couch. “It was nothing. It's gone.”

“I still think you should come with me to the lab to draw some blood, see if I can figure out what caused this,” Liz says.

“Maybe you should,” Isobel adds. “It was kinda scary.”

“I don't think anything's wrong with me,” Michael says. “I feel fine. It felt more like...it came from somewhere else. Maybe the mind stuff went wrong somehow. Maybe Isobel choked me without knowing it with her telekinesis, she's still not fully in control.”

Alex looks between them, trying to follow the conversation. “ You should do what Liz says,” he pipes up. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Fine,” Michael sulks. “Wait, didn't you feel anything? You're supposed to feel everything I feel,” he indicates Alex's hand.

Alex starts to shake his head, frowning, but he stops himself. What if−

_Fuck._ He looks at Michael, then down at the shimmering handprint.  _He_ did this. He made Michael feel−

_Fuck. Fuck Fuck−_

“Alex!” Michael chokes out. 

“Michael!” Liz shouts. 

Michael's hand goes to his throat, as Alex struggles to breathe. 

“Shit, that's what it was!” Liz exclaims, catching Alex before he falls down. “What the hell?”

“He's having a panic attack,” Alex dimly hears Isobel says. “Alex, breathe with me.”

Alex tries, but he can barely see Michael in front of him, struggling to breathe. “Alex, focus on me!” Isobel tries, forcing herself into his field of vision. “Count down from twenty, okay? With me. Twenty−”

Alex shakes his head, looking wildly around him. He has to get this under control. Right now, before it affects Michael even more. Only the thought that he's doing that to Michael is making it worse.

Arms engulfs him, squeezing him tightly, and−it's Michael. Alex can hear his wheezing, irregular breathing in his ear. The hug grounds him, almost immediately.

Count down. Twenty. Nineteen.

Michael is like a warm cocoon around Alex's trembling form.

Eighteen. Seventeen.

Alex forces his breaths to lengthen, ignoring the burning feeling in his chest. He has to do it, for Michael.

Fourteen. Thirteen.

“You're doing good,” Michael murmurs haltingly.

Ten. Nine.

They're on their knees, and Alex knows he's not going to be able to walk after that, but it's okay. Michael's there.

Not his father.

Five. Four.

“Almost there,” Michael says.

Two. One. Alex lets himself falls fully to the floor, unable to hold himself up. Michael gently accompanies him until they're both lying down.  Their hearts are beating in unison, too fast and too strong.

“There.”

The girls have retreated somewhere else. Alex will care, later,  that they saw all this , but right now he doesn't. “ You okay?” he asks Michael in a whisper.

“Yeah,” Michael says, pulling himself up to look at him. “Looks like I feel what you feel, too.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I'd like to know what brought it on the first time, but we'll talk about it later. Right now, just let me get you to the couch and you can rest.”

“I don't need−” Alex starts.

“Alex, if the next words to come out of your mouth are that you don't need to rest, I'm going to choke you myself.”

Alex laughs weakly, surrendering. “Fine.”

He lets Michael pull him up and help him to the couch, using both his body and his telekinesis to keep Alex upright. Once Alex is lying on the couch, he sits down on the edge, running his hand down Alex's back.

“You don't have to stay,” Alex murmurs. Two panic attacks in a row are a bit too much for his body to handle. He feels his eyes closing on their own.

“I'm not leaving. I'd rather not end up randomly choking again without knowing why. So I'm stuck with you for the next few days.”

“Won't happen again,” Alex mutters.

“Yeah, well let's make sure of that together, alright? You can sleep. I'm just staying here.”

Alex nods, too tired to fight it. The hand on his back is still grounding, and he never wants it to go.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I'd love to hear what you think :)


End file.
